Patrick Rowley has been honoured as the only (known) journalist to have covered both the London Olympics in 1948 and 2012. His record was recognised yesterday, while covering his 14th summer Olympics, with an award from the International Sports Press Association (AIPS).

He was just 14 when he persuaded the editor of the Middlesex Chronicle - who happened to be his childhood cricket team captain - to let him cover the 1948 Games.

He went on to be a freelance, spending some 50 years filing to The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times and The Observer.

Now 78, he has narrowed his focus from the coverage of all sports to cover just one this time around: hockey. He is working for the French news agency Agence France-Presse and the Sunday Express.

He has witnessed some of the greatest Olympic moments - such as Bob Beamon's legendary leap of the century in 1968 in Mexico and Fanny Blankers-Koen's dominance of the 1948 London Games. He later befriended Fanny, who he describes as "the Usain Bolt of her day."